Oh sweetness. We've been waiting for this one for a while now: The Xbox 360 Elite finally landed on our doorstep today. Of course, we took the time to open it up and pour over it with a magnifying glass to spot any new features Team Redmond might have included besides a bigger hard drive and HDMI input. Hit the jump to find out what we saw.
The first thing we found was this neat little device:
Apparently, the folks at Microsoft expect first-gen 360 owners to find the siren call of the Elite's irresistible, so they included this handy data transfer cord. Just hook one end into your old 360 hard drive, the other into your Elite and, theoretically, you'll have a seamless file transfer. One caveat though: The manual indicates the cord can only be used once for one data transfer and afterwards it will be useless. Microsoft really doesn't believe the haxz0r public will let this one ride, do they?
Whatevs. Time to cut that seal and dive in. Ahh there's nothing we like more than that fresh, slightly toxic scent of new electronics.:
Popping the Elite out, we noticed it was more of a dark charcoal than black. (And yes, that's a butterfly knife to the right of the Elite. That's just how we roll in the G-Lab.)
Just like the O.G. 360, the hard drive is awkward and tricky to get out, requiring an simultaneous push and pull.
But, of course, our old 360 hard drive doesn't have "120GB" written on it either.
The usual suspects for accessories were included plus the HDMI cable and one black 360 controller. Now if you need an excuse to purchase a 360 Elite (besides the fact that it's way cool looking) it's the HDMI 1.2a port. Able to handle DTS, WMA Pro, PCM, and Dolby Digital signals, the Elite has the specs to legitimately hang with a PS3.
As far as we could tell, the only difference for the controller is its color. But that should be a welcome improvement since the darker hue is more apt to conceal grime.
So nothing surprising from Microsoft here. They say once you go black you never look back. We'll just see about that after we have electricity running to the Elite. If there's any difference between this version and the archaic, white 360 we'll be sure to let you know. But only after several strenuous test hours playing GoW.
